If Craig
Nies has ever given a lightweight
recital, we must have missed it. The
powerhouse pianist's spring concert
continues his ongoing complete cycle
of Bach's encyclopedic
Well-Tempered Clavier. The
program also includes Chopin's
stormy Sonata No. 2 —
featuring the famous “Funeral March”
— and Debussy's beautiful 1904
L'isle joyeuse, as well as
shorter gems by Brahms and
Rachmaninoff. In nearly two decades
at the Blair School of Music, Nies
has been well-loved by Nashville
audiences and students alike, and
his staggering technical control and
thoughtful interpretations have won
acclaim in major concert halls from
Prague to New York. The season of
faculty recitals may be near its
close, but Blair has saved one of
the best for last.

In a
head-spinning turn of
meta-nostalgia, it seems that we're
in the middle of a ’90s neo-soul
revival. Yep, the genre that revived
the sounds of the ’60s and ’70s is
getting a revival of its own: Erykah
Badu is has a fantastic new album,
Maxwell has become one of music's
elder statesmen and even D'Angelo is
back in the news. It seems that
turn-of-the-century sex symbol
D'Angelo — whose video for “Untitled
(How Does It Feel)” still turns
labia into fire hydrants — was
busted for soliciting sex on the
streets of Manhattan early last
month. Kinda disappointing, sure.
But it'll be easy to forgive him
when a whole crew of Nashville's
finest neo-neo-soul performers,
including Scene favorites Jonathan
Winstead, Mike Hicks and William
Davenport, get together to cover
D’Angelo’s classic first album
Brown Sugar.

Last
year’s
Earth
Day
Festival
was the
one bit
of calm
in the
day of
claustrophobia
and
indiscriminate
record-buying
that was
Record
Store
Day.
When the
crush of
people
trying
to catch
The
Avett
Brothers
at
Grimey’s
became
too
much,
the
compulsive
composters
at
Centennial
Park
welcomed
us with
open
arms.
After
last
year’s
eclectic
bill of
local
funk,
rock and
folk,
the
festival
is
keeping
its
music
side
decidedly
low-key
with
performances
by jam
band
Homemade
Water,
Belmont-based
folkies
Apache
Relay,
one-time
Nickel
Creek
fiddler
Sara
Watkins
and
master
banjoist
Bela
Fleck,
who’s
playing
an
acoustic
show
with an
unnamed
set of
friends.
The
festival
is free.
Free

Collaborations
between
bluegrass
bands
and
orchestras
have had
a sparse
but
honorable
history
since
the days
when The
Osborne
Brothers
lined up
in front
of a
symphony.
It’s a
tough
job
getting
scores
of
orchestral
players
into the
same
groove
as a
lean,
nimble
ensemble
that
places
the
degree
of
emphasis
on the
sort of
tight
timing
good
bluegrass
bands
are
known
for.
Cherryholmes,
the
family
band
that
looks
like
anything
but —
and who
have
been
forging
their
own path
through
and
beyond
the
world of
bluegrass
in the
past few
years —
have
done
well
with the
project
in
various
locales,
but this
is the
first
time
they’ve
brought
the show
to their
hometown
folks,
and
they’re
plenty
pumped
about
the
prospect.
The set
list (or
should
that be
program?)
is built
on
material
from
their
last two
albums,
and a
preview
of songs
from
their
next
release
is
promised
too.

If you
consider
yourself
a
follower
of
Nashville
art
rock,
then
you’re
likely
well-acquainted
with the
collective
body of
work
that
features
familiar
sidemen
Ryan
Norris,
William
Tyler
and
Scott
Martin —
the
power
trio
that
makes up
much of
the
sonic
muscle
behind
indie
faves
Lambchop
and
Cortney
Tidwell.
Helmed
by
multi-instrumentalist
Norris
and
drummer
Martin,
Hands
Off Cuba
is one
of a
myriad
of
projects
that
also
include
Tyler
(guitar),
along
with
bassist
Adam
Bednarik
and
fellow
multi-instrumentalists
Ben
Marcantel,
Jonathan
Marx and
Matt
Glassmeyer.
Having
risen
from the
ashes of
long-defunct
local
favorites
Character,
H.O.C. —
along
with
their
overlapping
musical
collective
Forrest
Bride —
have
established
a fluid
Music
City
continuum
of
instrumental
Kraut-informed
post-rock
that
makes
more
refined
local
listeners
rightfully
feel
lucky to
live in
Nashville.
After
having
established
themselves
locally
and
beyond —
via
touring,
local
gigs, a
couple
of EPs
and a
handful
of remix
projects
— the
band now
releases
its
long-awaited
debut
full-length
From
Arrival
to
Survival.
Assimilating
the
aesthetics
of
influences
such as
Brian
Eno,
Bitches
Brew-era
Miles
Davis,
Tortoise
and Can,
the
record
is a
hauntingly
gorgeous
auditory
landscape
of
moods,
melodies
and
beats —
both
electronic
and
organic
— that
is
cerebral
and
ethereal.
In
keeping
with
their
unorthodox
musical
approach,
the band
will
celebrate
with a
release
show at
West
Nashville’s
bowling
mecca,
the
Hillwood
Strike
and
Spare.
The
event
also
doubles
as the
“First
Annual
Fifth
Anniversary
Party”
for
William
Tyler’s
Sebastion
Speaks
label —
on which
the
record
is being
released.
Sharing
the bill
are
partners-in-crime
Forrest
Bride,
The
Looking
Glass,
Deluxin’,
Columbus,
Ohio’s
Black
Swans
and
Tyler’s
own
Paper
Hats.
The
potential
cherry-on-top
is a
rumored
performance
courtesy
of
socially
perverse
local
puppeteers
Pull the
Strings
Players.

A
skillful
songwriter
with a
gift for
big
hooks
and an
unobtrusively
old-school
production
aesthetic,
Dave
Barnes
pays
tribute
to
reggae,
’70s
soul and
classic
pop on
his new
full-length
What
We Want,
What We
Get.
A South
Carolina
native
who grew
up in
Mississippi,
Barnes
sounds
at home
with
retro-soul
on
What We
Want
tracks
such as
“Chameleon”
and
“Someone's
Somebody.”
He
writes
tricky
melodies
with
interesting
chord
changes,
while Ed
Cash's
production
adds
organ
and
horns to
the mix.
Still,
Barnes'
examinations
of
romance
and
self-determination
are a
trifle
uninflected
— he can
seem a
manipulator
of
tropes
and
nothing
more.
What We
Want
succeeds
on the
strength
of his
sweet-and-sour
singing
and some
lean,
attractive
arrangements.
He's not
yet a
soul
auteur
on the
level of
Lewis
Taylor
or
Terence
Trent
D'Arby,
but
“Chameleon"
sounds
like
prime
Walter
Becker —
with a
clean
conscience,
of
course.
$15

For better or (probably) worse, Suzanne Vega is best known in the U.S. for DNA’s sinuous, bass-heavy remix of her song “Tom’s Diner” — a litany of observations about the NYC restaurant that would later serve as the regular rendezvous point for the characters on Seinfeld. Her consistently adventurous songwriting throughout the ’90s should have deepened her fame — especially with the daring leap she took from the introspective folk of “Luka” to the buzzing, clattering environments of 99.9F — but so it goes. Vega recently re-upped “Tom’s Diner” with The Roots in an appearance on Fallon, and she’s touring in support of Close-Up Vol. 1, a collection of love songs that are no less powerful for being less well-known. $40

Pop tunes that burrow into your brain are called earworms. Owl City’s platinum-selling ditty “Fireflies” is a glowworm, pulsing rhythmically in your cranium along an endless electromagnet algorithm. “Fireflies” is a friendly worm, dwelling in your brain like a good guest, never being irksome or making a mess in your frontal lobe. Owl City (aka Adam Young) has taken a lot of criticism for sounding remarkably like Death Cab vocalist Ben Gibbard’s now-on-hiatus outfit The Postal Service. Well, so what. Taken on its own terms, Owl City’s oeuvre isn’t bad for a 23-year-old recently liberated from his mom’s basement in frosty Minnesota. If sometimes his kiddie-piano approach is a little too simplistic (“Hello Seattle”) or lacking in focus (his new single “Vanilla Twilight,” whose video features a bunch of people — including Shaquille O’Neal — staring at the sky), it’s still good pop. And the fact that it helps adolescent music nerds around the world believe there’s a future beyond the basement, well, that’s just an extra little hospitality gift. $20

Seems every other week the Scene cover story deals with fighting of some sort — wrasslin’, mixed martial artistry, etc. — but the real throwdown in town this summer has once again been the battle for a spot onstage at our backyard megafest, Bonnaroo. Stepping into the ring on this week’s card, the third of four in the prize-fighting series: the highwire power-pop of AutoVaughn, the earnest Appalachian tilt of Deadstring Brothers, the tuxedo-clad doo-wop of Dozen Dimes, the glammy beard jams of Majestico, the paint-faced pop squawk of Mikky Ekko, the Kinksy indie-pop of The Nobility, the salty American bang of The Effects and the Ronstadt-cowgirl narratives of Caitlin Rose. Free

Ball’s moment in the mainstream limelight came and went some time ago, but if ever there were an artist whose career exemplifies the virtues and rewards of modest persistence, it’s Ball. His new album, Sparkle City, dishes up a set of flawless performances that cover the country music waterfront with knowing affection and a fine eye for detail, from the raucous good times of “Country Boy Boogie” to the just-right blend of prettiness and melancholy in “Tulsa.” Ball’s band, the Pioneer Playboys, keep up with him without getting in the way, and Ball himself is singing better than ever, with an unerring command of phrasing and dynamics that makes listening a pure pleasure. The result is a deeply satisfying slice of country that upholds tradition without beating you over the head with it. free

Our local, aspirant music-meets-fashion festival is back for its fourth year. While it's easy to write the whole thing off as the Not Quite as Big Nashville Festival or just laugh at the idea of Nashville attempting to be fashionable, you got to give the folks credit for trying to do something other than live complacently among the slobs and slouches that epitomize Nashville style. With six days of rock and fashion shows, NWU aims to shine a light on the more forward-thinking acts amongst us, including De Novo Dahl — whose new album Tigerlion is phenomenal — Armed Forces — whose “Radical Luv” is such a good tune that even Nashville Cream’s anonymous curmudgeons have endorsed it — and Duck McFli, one-half of electro-rap duo the N.O.B.O.T.S. and fashion hustler in his own right, along side a whole slew of up-and-coming local designers. $5